I'm Latigo Flint, the greatest quickdraw the world has ever known. I can draw, aim and fire a six-gun faster and straighter than anyone, living or dead. If I had been born 150 years earlier, I'd have been a living god in the American West - but I wasn't, and that's the dern, cursed luck that I have to live with.
Blogger.com has agreed to publish a running journal of my life. I reckon that was mighty kind of them, and I'm much obliged.

Friday, March 25, 2005

If Latigo Flint Had Been There

If Latigo Flint had been there in that Don McLean song, American Pie, you dern well better believe that marching band would have yielded.

The players would have been all running out of the locker room grunting and slapping each other on helmet and butt, hollering things like: "Herewegonow, herewego!!!" and "Not in our house, kitten, not today!!!"

But then the marching band would have been all like: "Sorry guys, we've got a couple more sets." The players would have been all: "WHAT? HEY! NO! You little lames git going!" And the band is all: "Look, all these people got up to dance, and by golly they're going to get a chance." And the players are all like: "GRRRRRRR!!!" And the band waves dismissive hands: "Sorry, wait your turn."

Then the ominous sound of spurred boots on concrete cuts through the din. Fifty thousand heads turn and behold Latigo Flint striding up the dimly lit tunnel. It takes about three seconds for the entire stadium to fall completely silent. Latigo Flint passes under the goalposts and crosses the end zone, painted grass crunching softly underfoot. The players part down the middle and when the drum major gets his first good look at what stalks him through a canyon of jerseys and facemasks, he blanches and drops his tasseled staff.

There are squinty-eyes and then there are squinty-eyes. A clump of petulant teen girls gives squinty-eyes to the pretty new girl when she passes their table -- That drum major stared into Latigo Flint's squinty-eyes and could physically taste bloody dirt, bitten reflexively by dying jaws.

"I believe these fellers have a game to play."

"W-w-we were just leaving."

"Your flute and piccolo section use too much sweet perfume. The halftime air is thick with it."

"I-I-I'll talk to them ab-ab-about that."

"Much obliged."

Latigo Flint stares down and to the side. It's clear this conversation over and the subtle implication--when Latigo Flint chooses to look up again, he'd better see only grass and painted hashmarks. Eighty musicians have never run so fast before or since.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The QB freezes, puzzled, wary. "I'm not your buddy. It's just that everyone agreed to a structure in which after a 30 minute pause, the game resumes. They were trying to violate that agreement. I made sure they didn't."

Fifty thousand breaths of relief when Latigo Flint finally disappears into the tunnel gloom serve to restart the stadium's engine. The ref hands the ball to the kicker and nervously blows his whistle.

Two hundred feet up in section G6 a pretty young woman turns to her male companion. "Ummm, remember what I told you last night when we kicked off our shoes and danced in the gym? Well, I lied!" And with that she stands and sprints toward the stadium exit closest to the tunnel through which Latigo Flint vanished.